England Does Not Show Weakness
by HikaKiti
Summary: It wasn't supposed to happen. It was a skirmish, an easy win. He wasn't supposed to end up... like this.
1. Chapter 1

_**England Does Not show**_** Weakness**

The bombs going off were enough to make anyone deaf, but when shrapnel pelted you from all sides, it made it enough to kill. I fell back, tugging metal from my leg and tossing it aside. It press my hand to my leg and blood soaks my fingers, but I honestly can't feel any pain anymore. I'm exhausted, more so then I have been in a long time. I'm shaking, and my throat and eyes are stinging, but I shove myself to my wobbling legs and keep going, because my friends are still fighting. I am _not _the only hero in this war. I'm fighting to save my life, and the lives of the men around me. I'm fighting.

I take a bullet to the leg, but my own sink deep into blue fabric, and I can only pray to God I've hit a vital enough place that the attacker will stay down as I struggle to stay on my booted feet.

There's a blonde flash to my right and England is at my side, bloody and bruised but alive, and I'm so _grateful _I want to fall to my knees and thank fate, but I can't because he knocks me over and more shrapnel flies over our head. We're pressed to the ground behind a slight rise in the earth, the best cover I've had all day.

We're loosing. Badly. Last I saw, France took two hits and went down. Not even sure he's still alive. I can't even worry about him, now, because England is cocking his gun and rising up on one knee, and then there's a boom – the loudest one I've ever heard in my life – and everything is black and red.

By the time I come around, I realize I don't hear anything. Not a deaf kind of nothing, there's this high-pitched whistle, but other than that its silent. I try to sit up and can't, because every muscle in my body is in pain. I blink and am staring up at the sky. It's stormy, and I think of how fitting it is. The first lousy loss of the Allies, and it rains.

As the first droplets of water finally wash over my face, I regain a bit of my hearing. The first thing I hear... screams. Screams of the most intense, primal form. The screams of someone who is dying, or perhaps so badly wounded they _wished they were. _

And something about it is familiar. As my body comes back into my control and sit up, ignoring the warmth that flows down from below my ribs in something scarlet and thicker than water. I spit, my tongue is cut, and there's a gaping wound in my side, but all that matters is that I get to the source of that pain. I drag myself, and the cynical part of my brain wonders how heroic I can look crawling across the ground with blood leaving a trail after me.

But I don't care, because my horrifying thoughts I've been praying are lies are true. He's laying there, in a pool of blood that is so big...

I shudder and nearly fall, but heroes don't faint so I pull myself to his side. His face isn't visible because of the blood, but that's where his hands are covering. "B-Brita...Britain?" I stammer, unable to form a complete sentence because I'm shaking so bad.

I feel something else slide down my face, besides the blood trailing my jawline, and when my cuts begin to sting from salt I know that I'm crying. I tremble again and tear the cloth off my jacket, mopping blood from the parts of his face that are visible. He's moving faster and faster and I don't know what to do. I tear his hands away in frustration and choke.

My reaction is to tear off my jacket and press it over his face. His blonde hair is red. I'm scared. I have no idea if he's dying, and if he is he's dying under my hands, and I've never even...

I'm sobbing, shouting for a medic and no one is showing. "A...mer...i...ca..." his voice makes me grab his shoulders. "Help... me."

No... he... he... England doesn't ask for help. He's the image of pride. He's... he's dying. "I... I am, Britain. Don't you dare die, you idiot!" I demand, finding a voice. His movements are getting slower, until he's lying on his back, each breath an effort.

He can't speak anymore, but suddenly there's the noise of a helicopter. I can't look up. My eyes are fixed on England, my hands pressing my jacket on his face to staunch blood, and knee shoved into his side to stop blood flow there. Because he's dying.

Gloved hands are picking him up and I panic, but I can't move. They take him away, and then come back for me. I don't move. I'm kneeling in the dirt, spike of pain arching through my body and tears still racing down my face. The trembling isn't making my wounds any better, and I've lost so much blood the doctors try to jokingly tell me they couldn't tell the difference of mine and England's. It doesn't make me feel better.

I try to get up, because I have to find England, because he has my jacket and I can't remember why, but there are thick black bands over my wrists. There are bandages tight around my chest and waist, and a few around my head, and all over my arms and legs. I'm wrapped up so tight I feel like a mummy. I shout for a doctor and one shows immediately, because they think I'm in pain.

I tell them what I want and they shake their head. They tell me he's in critical, and I don't understand. I must throw a fit, because suddenly there is a needle in my arm and everything is going fuzzy.

I come to, and the bandages are changed. There is a plate of hamburgers on my bedside. I'm hungry, but I don't eat them because my throat is so sore I feel as though someone is dragging nails up and down it. I stare at the water and then sip at it.

Where am I? I don't know. Don't care. A doctor comes in, tells me all the casualty numbers, and I barely listen enough to file them away into the still okay part of my mind. This wasn't supposed to happen. This... this isn't... it doesn't...

It was a skirmish! This couldn't have happened, because it _was impossible. _I fall under again when the doctor stabs me with another needle.

Next time I wake fully some of the bandages are gone and I'm allowed to get up to get my food. I do. I'm wobbly, and my legs are threatening to slide out from under me, but I wander my way to the dining hall.

We're in some hospital somewhere – white wall, white floors, everything stinking of Clorox and cleaning supplies. Not even the stink of bleach can cover the smell of blood and pain, though, and I see a cart full to the top with bloodstained bandages roll by. I'm beyond feeling other than hunger, though, so I manage the rest of the way to the food.

I scarf down something I can't remember, that might have tasted great or might have been poison for all I cared, drank about a gallon of water, and then began the seemingly long walk back to my room.

"He's not... I don't know what to say to him. How do you tell a man he'll never see anything again? I'm a nurse! You do it!" I freeze and turn my head to face the person who had spoken. The girl is young, with a innocent face.

I walk over. They stop talking immediately and stare at me warily, as if I'll attack them. "Who are you talking about?" I surprised my voice is this strong, as I haven't used it since God knows when. The doctor and the young nurse stare at me, as if amazed I understood what they were saying. I frown. "Well? Answer me."

"One of our patients has lost sight in both eyes due to - " the nurse begins, and I hiss.

"I don't give a damn how, _who?"_

"A...Arthur Kirkland... sir." the nurse stutters, and the doctor gives me a long look.

"You're Alfred Jones, are you?" he asked me, and I turn my glaring blue eyes to him.

"Let me in. Now." I snarl, because they are lying. England's fine.

They both stare at me, and I wonder if I can make it past them. Then the doctor nudges the nurse aside and lets me in. I shove past him, ignoring the protest from my reopening wound in my side, and find myself staring at a sleeping, blindfolded Great Britain.

His hair is soaked with sweat, and sticking to his forehead, and his lips are dry and chapped. He's wearing a hospital gown beneath the thin blankets, and that too is stuck to him from sweat. He must have had a fever or something.

I walk forward slowly, every step hard, and reach the chair by his head. As I sit I turn eyes to the doctor. "Thank you." I tell him, and he takes his cue and leaves.

There's quiet, besides the snuffles of the man in the bed. I stare at my hands, then at the ceiling and finally poke him in the shoulder. "Brit?"

He stirs and reaches out, panicking. "Wha- AH! Why is it... I can't-"

"See?" I finish for him, and he whimpers. Its a sound that makes a shiver pass down my spine because he never shows weakness – not to me. Never, except that one time... back... back in the rain.

I shake those thoughts away and focus on him. He's clawing at the blindfold, trying to pry it away from his face, but the idiots have tied it like a lifeline. I reach back and take his hands in one of mine, then untie the cloth, praying not to see empty sockets staring at me like Death itself. "Eng...land? How... How many fingers?" I ask quietly, holding up three slowly and cautiously, because he's gone very very still.

"I can't see." he whispers. I feel my body droop.

"I know..." I tell him.

And even if he can't see, those green eyes – now hazed over with a mist that shows their uselessness – can still fill with huge tears. I look away, because England never shows weakness.

_**A/N: **Okay, the idea came from a piece of fanart I saw while watching an AMV. This might be continued, might not, so if you want more REVIEW. Anyways, I'll list as complete for now. ANYWAYS AGAIN, hope it was alright. I know I didn't say 'dude' or anything like that, but I was trying to write America's serious side, the side he has while fighting or while worrying over something important. _


	2. Chapter 2

_**A/N: ** This also came from an AMV. I have too much free time T.T . Anyways, Enjoy..._

**Help.**

"England?"

"Go away, America."

"But-"

"Go away. I don't want to see... I don't want to talk to you. Or anyone, so don't let bloody France in either."

"But Brit-"

"GET OUT ALREADY, GIT!"

I flinch, because even in those harsh words his voice breaks and I can hear his pain. He's alone in a world of nothing. I nod meekly and back away.

I'm such a hero.

England is blind. France nearly lost his life and is still in recovery. Both Canada and China had taken hits similar to mine. Russia is the best off of us all, escaping with only minor cuts and bruises. Even I'm broken and battered... in more ways than one. It shouldn't bother me so much – but it did. Because this wasn't supposed to happen, and its my fault it did because I led them into this. I ordered attacks, stood shoulder to shoulder to these men while we fell to pieces. While we almost died. And it was for _nothing _because we _lost. _I don't want to think about it anymore, but now that people are, for the most part, done healing, I can't walk down the hall without seeing the bandages wrapped around arms or legs, or the gauze taped to faces. And the way they look at me is with the one thing I cannot stand – Pity. I am America. The greatest country on Earth.

But I'm beginning to crumble, slowly. I'm falling, and I don't understand. I feel helpless, like I'm in the middle of the ocean without so much as a piece of driftwood to grab to keep my head above water.

I walk back to my own room and the doctor is already there, scolding me because I shouldn't be out of bed due to my injury to my side, and I wave him off with some super kind words of American vocabulary as a parting gift, before kicking him out the door and sitting down on the hard hospital bed. There's a mirror staring at me, and I grimace because I look awful. My head has a thick white bandage wrapped tightly around my forehead where the scars opened yesterday. I've given up on trying to pull a shirt over my head because it opens the stitches in my side, so I can plainly see the white of the bandages on my almost as pale skin. There are bruises on my jaw and scrapes on my bare shoulders. There are also dark bags under my eyes the doctors worry about, and I can't seem to get them to understand that I'm not in any pain they can cure.

I stare at that face in the mirror and try to find the past me – the real America that needs to surface again – but it's not there, or if it is its too deep for me to find at the moment.

I don't want to sleep, because dreams are worse than reality. There I relive the horrors, over and over. It's like that guy from the book I read a couple weeks ago - "I drag myself out of nightmares only to find there's no relief in waking."

I tear my eyes away – blue eyes that are so tired and scared I don't ever want to see them anymore – and stare at something else, and see that there are doctors running by. I stand up and run over, forgetting for a moment my injury as I slide open my door and look out. The doctors are crowding around someone, and I hurry forward to see who it is.

Green eyes that used to be so bright and emotional are now gazing blankly at me from the center of the doctors, and I freeze in place. The owner of these eyes is wearing nothing but a pair of blue hospital shorts, and he looks pale in the cold air of the halls. His steps are unsteady, but his hands strong and sure as he shove the outstretched hands away. "Let me go! I want to walk around!" he sounds almost childish.

The doctors continue to try and reach out to him, hands try to guide him. What kicks me into action is when a needle appears. "Hey! Stop it!" I yell, and rush forward. My hands are grabbing white jackets and pulling, pulling them away from him. His head jerks up at my voice, his hair bounces into his eyes and his hands don't move to remove it, to brush it back like they once would have.

"A...merica..." he whispers, and I don't look at him, because I don't want to feel guilty for his problem as well. The doctors glare at me, but the one with the needle has stalked off in a huff, so I don't care. I hate needles. A tiny piece of metal shouldn't be able to do so much. I'm thinking on my hate for needles when a touch on my arm makes me jump. His voice brings me back, tears me out of my thoughts. "America."

I turn slowly, looking out to the left because I can't meet those eyes. "That's me."

He doesn't say anything, but I can feel his eyes on me even while I'm staring at my bare feet. "America... what..." he hesitated. "Where am I?" he sounded like a lost little kid, and America was forced to drag his eyes from the floor to look into that soft, weak face. His eyes were so misty and unclear. He was different.

The question itself broke America's heart. "You're right outside my door, Brit." he said quietly.

"Bloody hell, you of all people." England snorted. He tried to brush past, but his feet became tangled. He fell.

I was slow to react, expecting England to be able to take care of himself. I barely snagged his elbow as he dropped with outstretched hands, and then he banged his knee on the floor. His curses brought more scraped faces poking out of rooms, and what a sight we must have been, him struggling to stand and me grimacing as he gripped my waist to keep upright. His arm brushed the wound and I growled. He noticed and jumped back, wobbling and stretching out his fingers for the wall. I reach out and guide his hand and he hits me, a bit high so its around my throat.

"I don't need help." he snarls, and I let go, backing up. Then his face, twisted into anger, falls into something I don't want to see – fear and helplessness. I want to look away but his eyes are staring through me and I can't.

"I'll get you back to your room." I tell him, hoping for him to agree because it would be more of a damage to his pride to go wandering through the halls until he was lost even more.

"No... no, America. Can you... can you help me find the kitchens?" he mumbles, reluctantly, and I bite my lip to keep my heart from tearing.

"Yeah, sure, England." I say. He reaches out a hand and I hold out my arm. He grabs me just below the elbow and I feel insanely awkward as we walk towards the dining hall. He's still a bit slow, and his other hand reaches out every once and a while, searching for something to hold. His steps are wary, as if he would be stepping off the side of the earth with the next one, and its stupid because he is never afraid, or careful, he's headstrong and he always charges straight into things.

We've reached the hallway containing the kitchen when his steps become surer. I think that he can maybe smell the food or something. We keep going, gaining a bit of speed, until we're walking normally as though he wasn't blind. But his hand on my arm is enough to remind me that he is.

"...I think I can manage from here." England says, and I realize we've entered the room. I nod, and he hurriedly lets go of my arm and draws away, just a step but it angers me that he immediately gains that look of worry, a slight crease between his freaky eyebrows.

I grunt, not able to say anything, and turn away. But not before I hear him mutter, "Thank you, America."

I close my eyes, because I'm not sure the world is right anymore. England doesn't do stuff like that. He doesn't apologise. Not ever. So he can't be England anymore.

And it's my fault.

**_A/N: _**_So yeah, not as sad. And you can take this any way you want - UsUk or just them being friends or whatever. Not as good as the first chapter, in my opinion, but you know, whatever. Anyways, review with your thoughts! _


End file.
